It was not given to Lincoln after all to play a great part in the reconstruction of the South; that was reserved for much rougher and much weaker hands. But the lines on which he had moved from the first are of interest. West Virginia, with its solid Unionist population, was simply allowed to form itself into an ordinary new State. But matters were not so simple where the Northern occupation was insecure, or where a tiny fraction of a State was held, or where a large part of the people leaned to the Confederacy. Military governors were of course appointed; in Tennessee this position was given to a strong Unionist, Andrew Johnson, who was already Senator for that State. In Louisiana and elsewhere Lincoln encouraged the citizens who would unreservedly accept the Union to organise State Governments for themselves. Where they did so there was friction between them and the Northern military governor who was still indispensable. There was also to the end triangular trouble between the factions in Missouri and the general commanding there. To these little difficulties, which were of course unceasing, Lincoln applied the firmness and tact which were no longer surprising in him, with a pleasing mixture of good temper and healthy irritation. But further difficulties lay in the attitude of Congress, which was concerned in the matter because each House could admit or reject the Senators or Representatives claiming to sit for a Southern State. There were questions about slavery in such States. Lincoln, as we have seen, had desired, if he could, to bring about the abolition of slavery through gradual and through local action, and he had wished to see the franchise given only to the few educated negroes. Nothing came of this, but it kept up the suspicion of Radicals in Congress that he was not sound on slavery; and, apart from slavery, the whole question of the terms on which people lately in arms against the country could be admitted as participators in the government of the country was one on which statesmen in Congress had their own very important point of view. Lincoln's main wish was that, with the greatest speed and the least heat spent on avoidable controversy, State government of spontaneous local growth should spring up in the reconquered South. "In all available ways," he had written to one of his military governors, "give the people a chance to express their wishes at these elections. Follow forms of law as far as convenient, but at all events get the expression of the largest number of people possible." Above all he was afraid lest in the Southern elections to Congress that very thing should happen which after his death did happen. "To send a parcel of Northern men here as representatives, elected, as would be understood (and perhaps really so), at the point of the bayonet, would be disgraceful and outrageous." For a time he and Congress worked together well enough, but sharp disagreement arose in 1864.